


To put you down

by linana (carpediorma)



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Body Horror, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpediorma/pseuds/linana
Summary: Two truths and a lie.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These past few weeks have been filled with negativity and this is the result. Some darksided stuff from me to you.  
> I don't like Hickey, but he's extremely intriguing to me, so I felt the need to explore a liiittle backstory for him.  
> I'm not very good at using warnings, so please let me know if you think another one needs to be added.  
> English isn't my first language! Sorry if there are errors or the phrasing is weird.

Going to sleep with nothing but his mother’s words assuring them she would find something the next day. Searching through trash, fighting off the need of eating flies and ants and worms, seconds away from swallowing dirt.

He was used to it. After his first years, after crying and despairing and giving up, it got easier to conquer the stone that squeezed his stomach. He was disciplined, just not in a way his mother could appreciate.

Since the real thing wasn’t available, he became a master of creation, able to invent himself and his siblings a full course dinner. Bread and butter, a salty meal, the freshest water. A sweet, sweet treat. Only the best for him and his people.

It didn’t matter he never tried fish because that gave him the opportunity to imagine all the flavors and textures it could have. He filled those lacks with his imagination and surely made them out to be even better than the actual dish.

"It smells bad." His little sister said.

"No problem, we’ll move on to the roasted turkey." He answered.

-

He looked at his mother and recognized her line of thought, how hard she tried to convince herself he was doing this for them. They both knew better.

-

It was practice. The priest had said power was in words, so he talked and talked and talked. He had been born with nothing more than a sharp tongue and a quick wit, so he became a master of deception, too.

Omitting and hiding. Decorating and reinventing. He was a seamstress of sorts, stitching half-truths and magnificent lies that fitted him better. It wasn’t much different from what the priest did.

-

He despised going to church. He despised the adults’ blindness and the other children’s lack of awareness. He refused to be another weak, silent boy. He would bite.

-

His mother was always warning him. Her voice oscillated from a concerned plea to an angry grunt, that was the full extent of her vocal register when it came to him. Even when she didn't speak, she was reproaching him with her eyes.

"Keep quiet," she said. "Learn your place." "If I were to cut your tongue, I would be doing you a favour," she said.

Then she said no more.

One day, his mother turned into a ghost. Her eyes didn't see anymore, her hands were cold. She was dead without knowing it.

His siblings were a stark contrast to her silence. They became background noise, an intolerable buzzing in his head, inescapable.

He _did_ escape, though. His mother used to tell him he was a selfish delinquent and she loved to be right, so he granted her the last laugh or whatever her decaying body could muster in a state like that.

Those four walls that once suffocated him collapsed as soon as he stepped out with the intent of never coming back; the world expanded itself in front of his eyes. His previous life was debris behind him. He shred his old self with every step he took.

He ripped out his eyes and pulled his teeth. He cut off his nose and tore out his hair. He looked for a new voice, rolling it around his mouth. He wondered if the people who passed him realized he was a boy with no face.

Alone, with a hunger bigger than just the gutting feeling in his stomach, he pondered what would become of him. His mother insisted doors were closed for people like them, but he would mangle his hands and tear off his nails to make a place for himself. To be seen, to be heard. He refused to walk through life invisible.

-

Some looked at him with pity, others with contempt. A few tried to lend a hand he promptly ignored. He wasn't a torn-up kid, he would patch himself up.

He needed nothing else than his knife, sharp as his tongue.

-

His little sister wanted to grow up to be a bird. He was a maggot.


	2. To haunt you down

It took some time to adjust, yet one day the noisy street woke him up and he knew. He was finally free. In control of his life. 

-

There was room to grow. He wasn’t definitive, finished. He still had to morph into whatever would ensure his survival. He wasn't a know-it-all, as someone said to him as a child. He didn't remember who, couldn't recall much from his past. 

Still, some old voices visited him on certain nights, as echoes with no names nor faces. When the cold became unbearable and his hunger felt infinite, his history came back as a ghost.

He could prove it wrong. He would rewrite it, each new decision a brushstroke to conceal what used to be until there would be a whole new creation of his own making.

-

He learned that it was easier if he leaned into others. If he pretended to. People reacted better when he acted as if he cared about what they thought or did. 

The poor only became interesting when they were grateful or entertaining, the only reason to help the homeless was to see their own good actions mirrored in the bums’ eyes. 

He played the part accordingly. He could be a sad orphan capable of melting the hardest of hearts, a mischievous lad who made people laugh with his hilarious endeavors, or a cunning snake willing to do anything for a little money. He could be whatever they wanted.

He took everything they gave him. Pity, lust, violence. He always managed to gain something. Not love, though, because his voices were right about that, he was unlovable and he lived by it. Why yearn for love when he could fight for power? 

-

He took, he took and he took until they let go.  _ They _ , never him. He was compromised with his quest, unflinching. Not even the punches and the slaps made him quiver. He stood and waited for the pain, knowing it would bring something better eventually. 

He gave, too. He became as soft as a flower, far from withering, a vivacious thing if they asked him to. He could be a feral creature as well; a mouth full of teeth, ready to sting, to mark. 

To give and take, to hurt and be hurt. That’s life. To do unto others what they want and receive it, too. _That’s life_. 

He discovered a primal instinct inside himself, standing in the middle of a cemetery, still breathing among death. While everything succumbed, he remained. It kept him going, never stopping. 

-

Just because he was willing to accommodate himself to other people’s wants and needs didn’t mean he wouldn’t break rules. The world’s laws had no meaning if they restricted him or brought a loss to him. He lied, stole, and hurt if he needed to. 

The world’s laws, which determined the behaviour of so many, weren’t enough to keep him down. 

-

The owner of the shop he stole from called him a dog. A mad dog, a bad dog. The man knew it was him who did it but had no evidence, so he just insulted him. He cursed the cynical glint in his eyes, the way his smile appeared once he crossed the doors with a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, whatever valued prize his hands managed to grab; faster than any watchful eye. 

It wasn’t a good comparison. Dogs got frightened, could be domesticated. He was the stick that wounded the dog, the gun that killed the animal. He was the end. 

He would keep excelling in his illicit activities until they, the whole world, realized that. 


End file.
